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Lot essay

This picture is a smaller version of 'Evening, Malahide Sands' painted circa 1883 which now hangs in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin. It was presented by the artist to Hugh Lane in 1904, with the hope of starting a collection for a gallery of modern art in Dublin, and has been the most widely exhibited of Hone's paintings.

When the artist and writer AE (George Russell) saw the larger version at the 'Hone-John B. Yeats Exhibition' in Dublin in 1901 he wrote 'There is a greater intensity than is usual in Mr. Hone's work. There is something thrilling in this twilight trembling over the deserted world ... There is some magic in the vision made up of elemental light, darkness and loneliness, and we feel awed, as if we knew the spirit was hidden in his works'.
(see J. Campbell, Nathaniel Hone the Younger, Dublin, 1991, p.116).